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PaulZNewbie Joined: Dec 22, 2015 17:33Messages: 38Offline
Solved byApr 30, 2019 01:45
I usually start projects from a template. This time, I forgot. I started a new project and forgot to set the AR. It defaulted to 4:3. Partway through, I realized my mistake. I changed the AR to 16:9, which messed up the keyframe stuff on the stills. I manually fixed all of that and saved as a new project name. Exit, re-start, all OK. AR still 16:9.
I normally run PD on my desktop, but I need to go out of town, so I installed PD (version 14 - same in both cases) on the laptop. I use syncplicity (like dropbox) to keep the directories sync'ed between the machines.
The project loads fine on the desktop, but no matter what I do, it reverts to 4:3 every time I load it on the laptop. It's maddening. I can start PD, set the aspect ratio to 16:9, load the project (that loads at 16:9 on the desktop), and, boom, it's 4:3 and all the stills are messed up. I set it to 16:9 - stills are still messed up.
What the heck is going on here? Is the AR stored in the project file or not? How can a tool set to 16:9, loading a project set to 16:9, end up at 4:3??
The aspect ratio is stored in every project. If that conflicts with PD's current setting you will see the AR conflict message, unless that setting has been disabled.
Chances are, if you go to Preferences (the gear icon) and look at the first setting in Confirmation on your laptop, that box will be unchecked. Enable it, and your problem should vanish because you'll always have a say in which AR to keep:
PaulZNewbie Joined: Dec 22, 2015 17:33Messages: 38Offline
Apr 30, 2019 12:12
Optodata,
Thanks for responding. This checkbox was already checked. It still changes the AR, but it doesn't prompt. Weird.
QuoteThe aspect ratio is stored in every project. If that conflicts with PD's current setting you will see the AR conflict message, unless that setting has been disabled.
Chances are, if you go to Preferences (the gear icon) and look at the first setting in Confirmation on your laptop, that box will be unchecked. Enable it, and your problem should vanish because you'll always have a say in which AR to keep:
PaulZNewbie Joined: Dec 22, 2015 17:33Messages: 38Offline
Apr 30, 2019 12:15
I tried packing the project to another directory and loading it from there. That didn't help, either.
On the trouble machine (the laptop), PD always starts in 4:3. The desktop starts (now) in 16:9, although it must not have done that when I first started working on the project.
Is there some system-wide preferences that controls this?
QuoteI tried packing the project to another directory and loading it from there. That didn't help, either.
On the trouble machine (the laptop), PD always starts in 4:3. The desktop starts (now) in 16:9, although it must not have done that when I first started working on the project.
Is there some system-wide preferences that controls this?
Sounds like you might have a corrupted installation on your laptop, then.
Try this: make sure that PD is set to not open the previous project when it starts, then set the AR to 360 or 9:16 then close and reopen PD. If it comes up as 4:3, uninstall PD and then reinstall it and try this simple test again.
PaulZNewbie Joined: Dec 22, 2015 17:33Messages: 38Offline
May 01, 2019 18:33
Autostart previous project is already off. I set AR to 16:9, and I can open and close PD all I want and it stays 16:9... until I load the project file.
I'll try reinstalling. If that doesn't work, the next step might be to have Syncplicity synchronize every file PD knows about, using the desktop as the source of the files.
Where does PD dump its junk (in Windows 7/10)? I've read it keeps stuff in Users/<username>/Cyberlink. Anywhere else?
Oh, I guess that's another difference. The desktop is W7, the laptop is W10.
Sounds like you might have a corrupted installation on your laptop, then.
Try this: make sure that PD is set to not open the previous project when it starts, then set the AR to 360 or 9:16 then close and reopen PD. If it comes up as 4:3, uninstall PD and then reinstall it and try this simple test again.
QuoteAutostart previous project is already off. I set AR to 16:9, and I can open and close PD all I want and it stays 16:9... until I load the project file.
I'll try reinstalling. If that doesn't work, the next step might be to have Syncplicity synchronize every file PD knows about, using the desktop as the source of the files.
Two things. Can you pack one of the problematic projects to a cloud folder and post the link to it here? Obviously, only do that if you're comfortable sharing the library contents on the forum. If you can do that, it will let us test it and see if there's anything unusual about it. You could then delete the project as soon as we have the answer(s).
For the syncing, there are files scattered over several directories, and there are also dozens of registry settings that would need to be tracked and checked before blindly applying them to another Windows version. You also run the risk of a probelm with one project on one machine disabling related features on the other - which is definitely not what you want.
I also can't imagine that any of those files/registry keys are the cause of (or the solution to) this issue, and I really think that a full uninstall/reinstall on the problem machine is the simplest way to fix the problem, or at least rule out a bad install as the culprit. Examing a project is the other highest probability step.
I guess a 3rd item to try is to create 2 new projects, one on each machine, and set them both to a project AR that the laptop doesn't "like" and see if there's any difference when loading them. In other words, does one give you the AR conflict message but not the other...
PaulZNewbie Joined: Dec 22, 2015 17:33Messages: 38Offline
May 02, 2019 14:19
I did the uninstall/reinstall. No effect. I noticed that my preferences survived the process - so uninstall (W10 central remove programs) doesn't COMPLETELY uninstall everything about PD.
I noticed that the problem exists with every project I've tried it on. Since the original project had a complicated history (because it was once 4:3), and because it uses 4 large source videos, I upload a different, smaller, simpler project here:
There are two zip files - one from Pack Project on the desktop, and one from Pack Project on the laptop. The pds files differ (according to cygwin cmp), but, as they're binary files, I can't tell how.
By the way, PD doesn't "give the AR conflict message". It just silently switches to 4:3, "adjusting" as though I had manually told it to switch from 16:9 to 4:3. I have the switch for "Always prompt me when aspect ratios conflict" turned on, but it doesn't issue any warning.
I'll try your experiment with creating 2 different projects from scratch and let you know what happens.
Two things. Can you pack one of the problematic projects to a cloud folder and post the link to it here? Obviously, only do that if you're comfortable sharing the library contents on the forum. If you can do that, it will let us test it and see if there's anything unusual about it. You could then delete the project as soon as we have the answer(s).
For the syncing, there are files scattered over several directories, and there are also dozens of registry settings that would need to be tracked and checked before blindly applying them to another Windows version. You also run the risk of a probelm with one project on one machine disabling related features on the other - which is definitely not what you want.
I also can't imagine that any of those files/registry keys are the cause of (or the solution to) this issue, and I really think that a full uninstall/reinstall on the problem machine is the simplest way to fix the problem, or at least rule out a bad install as the culprit. Examing a project is the other highest probability step.
I guess a 3rd item to try is to create 2 new projects, one on each machine, and set them both to a project AR that the laptop doesn't "like" and see if there's any difference when loading them. In other words, does one give you the AR conflict message but not the other...
QuoteI did the uninstall/reinstall. No effect. I noticed that my preferences survived the process - so uninstall (W10 central remove programs) doesn't COMPLETELY uninstall everything about PD.
Hmm, you should have been prompted to delete or keep your "personalized settings" when you uninstalled PD. Myabe you clicked Yes on screen and didn't think about it, or maybe for some reason it wasn't displayed; either way it appears that Windows didn't delete those items.
If you want to ensure that everything is gone, you can use RevoUninstaller and do a thorough scan. Even the free version does that.
QuoteBy the way, PD doesn't "give the AR conflict message". It just silently switches to 4:3, "adjusting" as though I had manually told it to switch from 16:9 to 4:3. I have the switch for "Always prompt me when aspect ratios conflict" turned on, but it doesn't issue any warning. I'll try your experiment with creating 2 different projects from scratch and let you know what happens.
That's what I saw when I opened your projects, but it didn't happen every time. Here's a screen recording of me opening your 2 projects and a recent one from my PC:
Although it might appear that the problems are in your project files, I did some more checking after I made the recording and I found that several of my own projects silently overrode the existing AR as well. As far as I can tell, the AR conflict message isn't 100% reliable, and it may even be sensitive to the existing setting and or what the new setting is.
I think you should report this to Cyberlink via the support request page, and be sure to link the URL of this thread in your description. Be sure to follow the requested steps, then post the tickect number (CS...) back here to close the loop.
Please be aptient, as they are required to ask you to do several steps that you might think are irrelevent, but hopefully they will be able to confirm this issue.
PaulZNewbie Joined: Dec 22, 2015 17:33Messages: 38Offline
May 02, 2019 15:33
Here are the results of the experiment you suggested. Both projects were created with AR set to 16:9 in brand-new, clean directories with both the default input and output dirs (edit > preferences > files) pointing to this clean directory.
Project When loaded on desktop When loaded on laptop
-------- ---------------------------- --------------------------
created_on_desktop 16:9 4:3
created_on_laptop 16:9 16:9
The directories were created on a drive on the desktop that is shared on the network. So, they're both loading from exactly the same place (not a copy).
Weird, huh?
QuoteI did the uninstall/reinstall. No effect. I noticed that my preferences survived the process - so uninstall (W10 central remove programs) doesn't COMPLETELY uninstall everything about PD.
I noticed that the problem exists with every project I've tried it on. Since the original project had a complicated history (because it was once 4:3), and because it uses 4 large source videos, I upload a different, smaller, simpler project here:
There are two zip files - one from Pack Project on the desktop, and one from Pack Project on the laptop. The pds files differ (according to cygwin cmp), but, as they're binary files, I can't tell how.
By the way, PD doesn't "give the AR conflict message". It just silently switches to 4:3, "adjusting" as though I had manually told it to switch from 16:9 to 4:3. I have the switch for "Always prompt me when aspect ratios conflict" turned on, but it doesn't issue any warning.
I'll try your experiment with creating 2 different projects from scratch and let you know what happens.
Hmm, you should have been prompted to delete or keep your "personalized settings" when you uninstalled PD. Myabe you clicked Yes on screen and didn't think about it, or maybe for some reason it wasn't displayed; either way it appears that Windows didn't delete those items.
If you want to ensure that everything is gone, you can use RevoUninstaller and do a thorough scan. Even the free version does that.
That's what I saw when I opened your projects, but it didn't happen every time. Here's a screen recording of me opening your 2 projects and a recent one from my PC:
Although it might appear that the problems are in your project files, I did some more checking after I made the recording and I found that several of my own projects silently overrode the existing AR as well. As far as I can tell, the AR conflict message isn't 100% reliable, and it may even be sensitive to the existing setting and or what the new setting is.
I think you should report this to Cyberlink via the support request page, and be sure to link the URL of this thread in your description. Be sure to follow the requested steps, then post the tickect number (CS...) back here to close the loop.
Please be aptient, as they are required to ask you to do several steps that you might think are irrelevent, but hopefully they will be able to confirm this issue.
PaulZNewbie Joined: Dec 22, 2015 17:33Messages: 38Offline
May 02, 2019 22:02
Good news! Support got back to me with a link for updating the software. When I updated on the laptop, the "silent change" problems seems to have gone away.
It's still a bug that the tool fails to warn you when you load a different AR project, but I can live with that.
Note that I have "Automatically check for updates" turned on, and it never made a peep about there being an update available.
Ha ha. How do you fix THAT bug? With an update that no one will ever see? :
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